Inspired by the always-handy tricorders from Star Trek, a competition resulted in winners who created something similar. The handy thing about the tricorder (besides as a plot device) was that it could non-invasively detect several vital signs.
“Final Frontier developed a mobile device able to diagnose 13 health conditions while continuously monitoring five vital signs.” – IEEE Spectrum
DxtER still requires some contact sensors for things like blood pressure, but that’s not bad considering they are a few hundred years ahead of when the device was supposed to be invented, according to sci-fi. This is a first generation product, so it will be interesting to see how quickly the technology progresses.
“Brothers Win XPrize For “Star Trek”-Inspired Tricorder” – IEEE Spectrum
Pretending Not To Panic 